We’ve joined the Carnegie team! Find out more.
Alert Close close
Intelligence
More (Sobering) Second Thoughts About Second Life

Intelligence

More (Sobering) Second Thoughts About Second Life

Aug 17, 2007By Michael Stoner

Now some more fuel for the fire, which supports my skepticism and goes further. First, there’s Frank Rose’s piece for Wired, “How Madison Avenue Is Wasting Millions on a Deserted Second Life”—the title says it all. But here’s one of the choice bits:

Once you put in several hours flailing around learning how to function in Second Life, there isn’t much to do. That may explain why more than 85 percent of the avatars created have been abandoned. Linden’s in-world traffic tally, which factors in both the number of visitors and time spent, shows that the big draws for those who do return are free money and kinky sex. On a random day in June, the most popular location was Money Island (where Linden dollars, the official currency, are given away gratis), with a score of 136,000. Sexy Beach, one of several regions that offer virtual sex shops, dancing, and no-strings hookups, came in at 133,000. The Sears store on IBM’s Innovation Island had a traffic score of 281; Coke’s Virtual Thirst pavilion, a mere 27. And even when corporate destinations actually draw people, the PR can be less than ideal. Last winter, CNET’s in-world correspondent was conducting a live interview with Anshe Chung, an avatar said to have earned more than $1 million on virtual real estate deals, when Chung was assaulted by flying penises in a griefer attack.

Then, Chris “The Long Tail” Anderson wrote a blog entry about why he—a writer who did a book tour and interviews in SL, wrote about “Why I Gave Up on Second Life.” Yesterday, the Chronicle of Higher Education’s blog picked all this up in a blog entry called “Colleges Are Building in Second Life, but Is Anyone Visiting?”. Be sure to read the comments.

For me, this boils down to a question of simple economics. For most of our clients, staff time is the major input for any initiative. While I support risk-taking, it makes sense to me that with limited resources, you need to be careful about just what risks you take and avoid those that require you to invest huge amounts of time with little or no apparent return. Like Second Life.


  • Michael Stoner Co-Founder and Co-Owner Was I born a skeptic or did I become one as I watched the hypestorm gather during the dotcom years, recede, and congeal once more as we come to terms with our online, social, mobile world? Whatever. I'm not much interested in cutting edge but what actually works for real people in the real world. Does that make me a bad person?